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TouchDesigner User Guide

What's New

To find out what's new in the latest Official builds, read our 2021 Official Announcement.

Release Notes

Head to the Release Notes for a full changelog and details on the current build.

For the latest in the Experimental builds, see Experimental Release Notes.

Downloads

Download Official Builds - A complete list of current and past official builds.

Download Experimental Builds - An archive of all experimental builds.

Licensing

Non-Commercial licenses are available at no charge for personal, educational, or evaluation purposes. If you or your organization are compensated for your work with TouchDesigner, you must have a Commercial or Pro license. For a comparison of licenses see Licensing.

Updating to the most recent build requires a key whose 'Update Date' is after the build's compile date. Check your license's 'Update Date' in the MY LICENSES section of your MY ACCOUNT page at derivative.ca. If your license 'Update Date' expired before the compile date of the build you want to use, purchase '1 Year of Updates' from the store to get another year of the latest builds.

Forum and Support

Report your problems or ask questions in our Support Forum.

Getting Started

• The Getting Started Tips will help you install TouchDesigner and get it keyed and running.
• Go through First Things to Know about TouchDesigner to get an introductory overview.
• Follow along in this Introduction to TouchDesigner workshop. More workshop videos and tutorials can be found on the TouchDesigner Official Youtube page.

Tutorials and Workshop Videos

• Start with the quick primer First Things to Know about TouchDesigner followed by the Introduction to TouchDesigner workshop.

• TouchDesigner Official Youtube - A growing collection of Derivative tutorials and workshop recordings, as well as videos from previous TouchDesigner Summits.

• TouchDesigner Community Tutorials - The tutorials section of our new community feed, an amazing resource growing everyday.

• AllTD.org - An excellent resource that compiles learning materials in multi-languages from the broad TouchDesigner community, thanks to Jan Gryczan in Berlin.

• Matthew Ragan's TouchDesigner Tutorials - An excellent resource for learning TouchDesigner covering over 100 topics from a great teacher.

• Tutorials Page - A full list of tutorials available. Including user-contributed and older 088 legacy sections.

Online Courses (paid)

• TouchDesigner Workshops by Lich Pfad Studio & Stanislav Glazov - Excellent resource for GLSL, Geometry Shaders in particular and general introduction as well as intermediate material.
• TouchDesigner Tutorials by Elburz Sorkhabi & nVoid - Covering advanced topics such as Optimization, Render Picking, WebAPIs, GLSL and more.
• Learning TouchDesigner by Scott Pagano on Lynda.com - A 4h fundamentals course on TouchDesigner.

Documentation

• Browse the Wiki Categories. Also explore the navigation bar on the left using the links or search field.
• Operator Help pages - All the node types of TouchDesigner.
• Python page is the main jumping off point for all things Python in TouchDesigner. Python Reference is an alphabetical index of all Python pages in the wiki. Python Classes and Modules is grouped by subject. Also see the Introduction to Python Tutorial to learn the basics of Python scripting in TouchDesigner.
• TouchDesigner Tips - A collection of short how-to tutorials showing you how to accomplish certain tasks.
• Search documentation using the wiki advanced search page.
• Offline Help - Access the wiki when you are not connected to the internet by pre-downloading the offline documentation package.

Sample Components, Tools and Examples

• OP Snippets - Hundreds of examples found via (1) the Help -> Operator Snippets menu, or (2) right-click on any operator in any network, or (3) right-click on any operator in the OP Create menu.
• Palette Browser - In the menu Dialogs -> Palette Library, or the left-pane of the default TouchDesigner.
• .tox Component forum - User-contributed components.

Derivative Forums

• General forums - Where to get any questions answered.
• Gallery forum - What people have created with TouchDesigner.
• .tox Component forum - A collection of helpful community build components.

White Papers and Topics

• TouchDesigner Video Server Specification Guide
• NDI Performance Testing
• Projection mapping
• Generative Design
• Troubleshooting in TouchDesigner
• Video Streaming User Guide
• System Requirements
• Creating Audio with CHOPs
• Initialize Start
• numerous topics in TouchDesigner Glossary

Other Resources

• Facebook - Join us on Facebook and keep up to date with the latest TouchDesigner projects.
• TouchDesigner Help on Facebook- Massively helpful Facebook Help Group for TouchDesigner run by users.

• Vimeo - Videos posted by the TouchDesigner community on Vimeo.
• Twitter - Follow us on Twitter @1null1
• Books - Books to help you learn TouchDesigner. NEW! Writing GLSL Shaders
• Frequently Asked Questions - Frequently asked questions about TouchDesigner.
• CHOPCHOPCHOP - A marketplace for TouchDesigner Components.
• GitHub projects - Browse GitHub for a wide range of user submitted projects.
• Resources - Textures, devices, animations, movies, audio and more.

A built-in panel in TouchDesigner that contains a library of components and media that can be dragged-dropped into a TouchDesigner network.